In memory of Marcia J. Powell and all those prisoners who have suffered or died in the custody of the state.

The 'Friends of Marcia Powell' are autonomous groups and individuals engaging in prisoner outreach, informal advocacy, and organized protest and direct actions in a sustained campaign to: promote prisoner rights and welfare in America; engage the Arizona public in a creative and thoughtful critique of our system of "justice;” deconstruct the prison industrial complex; and dismantle this racist, classist patriarchy...

Retiring "Free Marcia Powell"

As of December 2, 2010 (with occasional exceptions) I'm retiring this blog to direct more of my time and energy into prisoner rights and my other blogs; I just can't do anyone justice when spread so thin. I'll keep the site open so folks can search the archives and use the links, but won't be updating it with new posts. If you're looking for the latest, try Arizona Prison Watch. Most of the pieces posted here were cross-posted to one or both of those sites already.

Thanks for visiting. Peace out - Peg.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Prison Abuse Remedies Act

Below is an editorial by the New York Times urging revision of the Prison Reform Litigation Act, which has been preventing prisoners from obtaining legal remedies to neglect and abuse since 1996 (another piece of legislative garbage Clinton signed to repress resistance). The follow-up to the Times Editorital is a good example of what a lot of well-educated people could be doing. The authors below make the direct link between the abuses of that law by prison officials, and the deplorable conditions in American prisons today. If Congress doesn't pass the Prison Remedies Act before they head full on into their 2010 campaigns, I think we should make it the number one campaign issue.

Thanks to Lois at the Real Cost of Prisons Project for passing this on to us. Perhaps in the meantime the draft legislation could be used as the foundation for new state legislation to remedy prison abuse.

You are right to call for legislation amending the Prison Litigation Reform Act. We sued on behalf of female prisoners in the New York State prison system who reported that they had been sexually assaulted by staff members, and have been appalled to spend the last six years litigating whether these 17 women — each of whom bravely complained of her abuse to departmental officials — exhausted their administrative remedies sufficiently to satisfy the law.

As a result, New York State has been able to avoid addressing the prison system’s longstanding failure to protect female prisoners from sexual abuse, allowing more and more women to be victimized.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act was sold in Congress as a measure against frivolous litigation, but has served in reality to prevent the redress of the most serious violations of prisoners’ human rights. The time has come for reform, or better yet, repeal of the law.

Lisa FreemanDori LewisNew York, Sept. 24, 2009

The writers are lawyers with the Prisoners’ Rights Project of the Legal Aid Society and lawyers for the plaintiffs in Amador v. Andrews.

In 1996, Congress passed a law that made it much harder for inmates to challenge abusive treatment. It has contributed significantly to the bad conditions — including the desperate overcrowding — that prevail today.The law must be fixed.

Times Topics: Prisons and Prisoners

In the name of clamping down on frivolous lawsuits, the Prison Reform Litigation Act barred prisoners from suing prisons and jails unless they could show that they had suffered a physical injury. Prison officials have used this requirement to block lawsuits challenging all sorts of horrific conditions, including sexual abuse.

The law also requires inmates to present their claims to prison officials before filing a suit. The prisons set the rules for those grievance procedures, notes Stephen Bright, the president of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and they have an incentive to make the rules as complicated as possible, so prisoners will not be able to sue. “That has become the main purpose of many grievance systems,” Mr. Bright told Congress last year.

In the last Congress, Representative Robert Scott, Democrat of Virginia, sponsored the Prison Abuse Remedies Act. It would have eliminated the physical injury requirement and made it harder for prison officials to get suits dismissed for failure to exhaust grievance procedures. It would have exempted juveniles, who are especially vulnerable to abuse, from the law’s restrictions.

The bill’s supporters need to try again this year. Conditions in the nation’s overcrowded prisons are becoming increasingly dangerous; recently, there have been major riots in California and Kentucky. Prisoner lawsuits are a way of reining in the worst abuses, which contribute to prison riots and other violence.

The main reason to pass the new law, though, is human decency. The only way to ensure that inmates are not mistreated is to guarantee them a fair opportunity to bring their legitimate complaints to court.

AZ Police State

STOP FASCISM HERE!!! FIGHT SB 1070!

We Are Everywhere...

Decided to plant this in here with a widget as a permanent reminder to those out there struggling through life that we need you here. All the injustice, grief, and human suffering calls for us to stay and do everything we can about it while we're here. Don't give up the fight - your last shred of hope may just keep someone else alive, too.

Survival Guide for Earth Liberation Activists

Street Arts & Buskers Advocates

ON DIRECT ACTIONS, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, ETC.

Taking a cue from the animal rights activists (who usually don't even put their names and faces on their sites), I thought I should clarify a few things here.

The Friends of Marcia Powell and freemarciapowell.blogspot.com are not very organized, nor are we affiliated or associated with any other group or organization. We all just crash each other's protests to show solidarity. Me (Peg) - I'm just winging this stuff.

The information and ideas provided on this website are not meant to incite illegal actions or activities, even if it looks like that may be what we're doing. That's not to say we frown on civil disobedience; there's an important place in history for diverse tactics of resistance. We are each only responsible for our own actions, though.

The point is for folks to get involved in the 2010 political campaigns and challenge the BS around the prison industrial complex, but please be creative enough that no one gets hurt or arrested (well, a few lawmen and makers need to be indicted and disarmed, still, but we don't want any more of our friends getting into trouble.)

Do be advised: these are not nice people we're picking fights with, they far outgun us, they make all the rules, the game is already rigged, and if you piss the wrong person off bad enough in this state, you don't even need to break a law to go to jail or prison.

In any case, make sure you have the number you'll need to call for help from jail written on your arm if you think you might get arrested. Live on the buddy system (keep an eye on each other for awhile and check the jail if anyone goes missing). Don't let things you're responsible for drag anyone else down; keep your loose ends neat.

Don't rat out your comrades, and don't automatically believe it if someone says that someone you trust ratted out you first. That's a classic tactic. So is trying to make you think that something perfectly legal you did is a crime. Just because it's secret doesn't mean it's criminal or shouldn't be protected.

Be true to yourself and the cause regardless.

If you have any questions about the legality of any direct action you are considering, we encourage everyone receiving this (or the) action alert(s) to check your local laws and ordinances and think about the possible consequences before proceeding to do anything. Not that you'd be on your own, but most of us are too poor to bail you out, and too politically disenfranchised to otherwise wrest you free.

July 29, 2010. Cesar Chavez Plaza/Wells Fargo, Phoenix.

Advocacy for women in Florida prisons

American Civil Liberties Union

National Prison Project Report

Mental Illness In Prison

Ill-Equipped: US Prisoners and Offenders with Mental Illness

Death by Incarceration

US DOJ Bureau of Justice Statistics: 2001-2006 Prison Deaths (pdf)

Gerlad & Maas' Nights Lantern

Excellent resource by our neighbors to the North on Human Rights, Political Prisoners, and the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.